Six riders charge down upon me. With one boot planted on the flanks of my dead riding beast, an arrow protruding from its neck, I stand in the middle of the bricked road, drawing forth my sword with the scratching din of steel upon a bronze sheath.

As the Romans are nearly atop me, I grip my weapon with both hands and twist to one side, thankful my limp does not slow me.

The first rider jumps my horse, his short sword swinging wildly above my head. I ignore him. The next rider has a javelin leveled at my chest. This man I take seriously. Just as the point of his weapon tears into my cloak, I drop and roll. I come up facing another mounted soldier, this one also right upon me. I stay low as he rides past, the tip of his spear mussling my hair as I lash out with my sword.

The blade chops through the horse's leg and sends beast and rider sprawling.

I barely have time to look up before the next rider is above. This one swings another gladius. Keeping low saves me a wound.

Finally, the fifth of them shows intelligence. He rides his animal right into me.

I'm knocked flat, the breath stolen from my lungs as I feel the heavy hooves of the Roman's beast digging into me, breaking bones and tearing flesh.

The sixth rider goes past, likely believing he has no reason to deal with me.

He is wrong.

I sit up slowly, the pain from being trampled tearing through my chest. I look down to see my toga has been ruined, torn and bloody, and my black cloak has not fared better.

I scream out as the agony of healing begins its work. The flesh of my body smoothes over, the bones crack as they begin to work themselves back to normal positions.

All of this is finished in seconds.

Gritting as the pain seeps away, I push myself off the road to stand and stare at the six riders. They are now twenty yards from me, all dismounted but one.

The six are unmoving, their eyes locked on me. A lack of understanding registers in their faces, fear of the unknown in their eyes. They had expected easy prey, and had found something alien.

I lift my sword.

They glance at one another. Uncertainty brings them pause.

I grip my long blade in two hands once more and twist so my left shoulder faces my enemies. It is a stance for chopping, for dealing with horsemen. I'm betting the last, lone rider will reach me first.

I am proven correct when he charges.

His companions run after him, yelling for him to wait, but it is too late.

He is suddenly upon me again, this Roman in his bronze armor and his javelin stabbing at my face. I knock aside his weapon with ease, then swing back to slice into his side beneath his breast plate.

The blow is deep, but not immediately deadly. He grunts and rides on past.

Then the other five are there.

They form a ring around me and my dead horse, the points of their swords aimed for me.

I grin. It has been some while since I have had a true challenge.

The first one dies instantly, his face impaled as I drive my sword through an eye socket and out the back of his head.

The next man is swinging his blade when I realize my sword is stuck in his dead companion's skull. Without thinking I bring up an arm.

His weapon sinks to the bone, but that bone holds.

Letting loose of my own sword, I snag the impaled man's weapon from his dropping hand. I slash out, driving back the one who had cut me.

Two others stab from behind. I feel their steel enter low in my back, the metal as cold as emptiness.

I twist, taking their weapons with me, the blades protruding from my back. I grab one of them by the wrist and pull him toward me, stabbing into his groin as I do.

He goes down with a spray of blood and a scream that would give his mother nightmares.

The next nearest is the other without a sword. He turns to flee. I take a step toward him, but a blow to my back, the pummeling of a hilt, knocks me to one knee.

A hand reaches around in front of my face and grips my neck, trying to choke the life from me. Then another Roman is in front of me, the choker's legs pinning me from behind. The warrior in front begins stabbing, his sword thrusting in once, twice, a third time.

The one throttling me brings his weapon around from the side, and he too joins in the attempted murder. Their blades sink time and time again, leaving bouts of pain that bring blackness to my vision.

But not unconsciousness.

I feel every wound, as they are made and as they begin to heal. It is like fire to my soul.

A minute later I am kneeling in a puddle of blood the size of a small pond.

My attackers' arms eventually tire. The two back away, a third man off to one side has a spear ready to throw.

I continue to kneel while glancing about. I no longer see the injured rider. He must have fled when he had the chance.

There are just the three now.

I stand and hear gasps.

“It can't be,” one of them says, his voice quivering.

I turn to him. I point my sword at him.

They run. All three.

I chase with my limping gait. The nearest man's armor slows him, so he does not get far. My sword crashes into the back of his head hard enough to twist his helm to one side.

The blow sends him reeling to the road with the clanging of his metal skin.

I kneel on his back and plunge my blade into his neck deep enough to feel brick beneath.

Then I am on my feet and running again. There are two more alive on foot. I will catch them and I will kill them. The rider I will allow his freedom, if he still lives. Someone needs to tell the emperor it is futile to come after me.

Removing the swords from my back is a relatively easy, though pain-filled, process. I twist, reach back, and yank.

Then I find myself with quite a haul. Once I put the wounded horse out of its misery, I have four other steeds. There is a hefty pile of armor and weaponry, though I toss most of it into the woods; it is not as if I need the funds the armor and swords would provide. There is a decent supply of winter clothes, coats and boots and breeches, and food and water to keep me refreshed for at least a few days. From the bodies I collect enough coin to stuff a small sack; again, I do not need the money, but I am no fool.

After calming the horses, I change into clothes provided by the dead and I ride on, three of my new animals tied behind.

The next morning I come to a village. It is little more than four structures of rough, lumbered wood, thatch and mud resting in a valley between browning hills.

The first to meet me is an old, grizzled fellow with little more than a wisp of white atop his head and dusty furs around his shoulders. His skinny legs are bare other than wolfskin wrappings he wears for boots.

“I have three horses for sale,” I say as I pull my animals to a halt in front of him and the hut he has just exited.

His gray eyes roam over my beasts, then jerkily move up to stare at me. “They bear the markings of Roman war ponies. I have no use for them.” His Latin is surprisingly good for the hinterlands of Gaul.

I slide off the side of my ride. “Perhaps the army will be grateful if you return the animals.”

“The Romans are never grateful,” the old man says, “other than when butchering.”

He turns away from me, as if he plans to re-enter his domicile. “Besides, you look like trouble,” he says.

Before he can leave, I speak, “I need little more than directions and some food for travel. If you will not take the horses as payment, then allow me to offer gold.”

He stops in his steps, his back to me. Slowly, he turns. My attempt at a bribe has not made his crooked, gummy lips smile, though it has raised one of his eyebrows.

I shake the little bag tied to a belt around my waist. The bag jingles.

The old man still does not smile. But he, too, is no fool. He glances up at me. “We have some bread and rabbit,” he says. “You are welcome to a share. As for directions, I will tell you what I can if it will speed you along. We have no need for trouble.”

I nod back at him. He is speaking plainly without being disrespectful. I appreciate that.

“Inside.” He motions toward his hut, then leads the way.

I tie my horses to a near tree and follow.

Inside I spend some few minutes gathering stale crusts and greasy strings of meat from atop a gnarly table. There is no conversation. The old man stares at me from atop a cut stump he uses for a seat.

When I am finished, he waves a hand at the door.

“Thank you,” I say, dropping a few coins on his table.

A soldier awaits me outside. He appears alone, standing next to my tied horses. He is of the army, though not a true Roman. His beard and chain shirt show him to be one of the emperor's Franks.

“They arrived a few hours before you,” the old man says from the shadows of his home.

I glance about, but see no more enemies. I ease toward the fellow, who stares at me with hard eyes beneath his helmet's lid. He has no weapon in his hands. His sword is in his belt. I could kill him, a single man, with ease, but I hold back in hopes of gaining information. Knowledge of local troop movements would aid me in avoiding the soldiers.

Nearly to the man, his hard eyes glance up.

And I realize what a fool I've been.

A noose drops around my neck and tightens. My food falls to the cold ground as I reach for my sword, but it is too late.

The soldier in front rushes forward and punches my stomach, sending me to my knees, the rope around my neck contracting further and cutting the last of my air.

With tears of pain I twist to one side to see the assailants above and behind. They are three more soldiers, these atop the old man's hut. Two of them are tugging on the rope encircling my throat. The other cohort is jumping to the ground.

I am punched again, this time in the face. The pain is momentary, but the blow sends me to one side, falling in the dirt.

Before I can lift myself, the two men on the ground are atop me, wailing away with their fists, hammering my skull and back.

I loose track of what is happening amidst the pain and the struggle. When the bruising leaves my eyes minutes later, I find I have been wrapped with rope from my neck to my ankles. My burial shroud.

A shadow falls over me.

I glance up.

It is a young man in a toga, furs encompassing his shoulders. A belt and short sword are at his waist. This one is a Roman, a true Roman. A Roman officer.

“Simon Magus, you have been found guilty of the crime of sorcery,” this young man says with a look of haughtiness. “The punishment is death by burning.”

That will prove painful.

I should have been prepared for such an eventuality. My capture. Being immortal can make one complacent.

The fire is built swiftly, a dozen soldiers in chain garb piling high cut logs and broken limbs in the center of the village. A splash of oil and a spark of flint and the blaze is reaching for the gray sky. The armored men form a ring around their burning handiwork, a dozen villagers in drab rags watching from the open doorways of their hovels.

I, still tied head to foot, am dragged to one side. Above me stands the young Roman commander. He reads from a scroll.

“By official injunction from his Augustus, Imperator Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus, you, Simon Magus, are guilty of the crime of acts of sorcery witnessed by numerous peoples within the empire of Rome,” the Roman says. “Have you anything to say in your defense?”

He glances down at me.

I smile at him. “You do know why Constantine wants me dead, don't you?”

He spits. The white dregs of his lips land on my rope-covered chest. “I could really care less.”

Then he continues to read. Most of it is bureaucratic nonsense, words and words and words that go on to say the same thing over and over again. I am guilty of sorcery. I will die because of it. The form of my execution will be by flame.

I interrupt at one point. “Have you ever wondered about your precious emperor's visions?”

At this the officer breaks his reading. He glances down upon me again. “What nonsense are you spouting?” he asks. “You have been found guilty by our emperor's decree. Behave and remain silent and I might be generous enough to allow one of the men to knock you unconscious before we toss you on your pyre.”

I chuckle. He frowns.

“Surely you know of his visions before the battle at Milvian Bridge?” I ask.

The Roman's eyes glaze over, as if he is remembering something far in the past. “In this sign you will conquer,” he repeats from history.

“Yes.” I nod. “The very words God supposedly spoke to Constantine the night before the battle.”

“What has the great miracle have to do with you?” the officer asks.

I chuckle again. He frowns once more.

“I am a sorcerer,” I say.

His frown deepens.

“Who do you think caused the vision?”

He blinks. Then the truth dawns on him.

“You dare to belittle the great Constantine with your blasphemous lies!” Spittle flies from his teeth to wet my face.

My laughter continues.

He kicks me. Not hard, but enough so my attention is focused upon him again.

“You … you!” The Roman slams the scroll in the dirt. He points to one of the soldiers. “Finish him! Now!”

I am yanked up by my neck. Before I can catch my breath, I am lifted onto shoulders and tossed into the blaze that has grown as high as the roofs of the huts.

As my bound form lands in cracking twigs and smoking leaves, I catch sight of the old man who had first spoken with me. I owe him no animosity. He did as he needed. They likely would have slit his throat if he had not come to their aid.

He turns away from my burning form.

Then I feel the pain. The fire eats through the ropes and my garb quickly, and soon my limbs are free. But it is too late for me to attempt an escape. The flesh has already begun to blue and has bubbled into blisters the size of coins.

I toss my head back and scream as the flames eat away my hair and dissolve my scalp.

Only a bit of consciousness remains to me as I am reduced to blackened bones.

I had never been burnt so badly in my more than three hundred years of existence. I had been stabbed, sliced, chopped, stung with arrows, trampled by horses, and a thousand other inflictions, but I had never been placed in flame to such extent.

It is another test of the curse placed upon me by one of God's own. Saint Peter should be proud of his work.

When I wake again, my body and mind are filled with agony. Every inch of my skin shrieks as if a million needles have been dipped in acid and shoved beneath my flesh. My reflexes tell me to wail, but my throat is seared shut. I can only lay in torment, feeling black skin like bark slowly healing and knitting my physical form back together.

Eventually the pain subsides somewhat and I can feel heat, though not the torturous fire that had caused my wounds. I sniff smoke and realize my body rests where the soldiers must have left me, in the middle of the bonfire.

Some time has passed. The flames are dead, though the coals still bring warmth to my troubled flesh.

My eyes finally open and I see the black smoke drifting around me and over me beneath a morning sun.

My ears open too, allowing the sounds of the outside world to return. There is not much. The neighing of horses. The shuffling of booted feet.

The Roman soldiers have not left.

Good.

I lay still, waiting for the healing to run its course. I can not stay still forever, however, because eventually I will be soothed enough that Constantine's warriors will take notice.

So, I bide my time.

When my throat and lungs finally have been eased by my inner powers, I mutter ancient words taught to me by a teacher dead nearly three hundred years.

The smoke around me grows more thick, more ebon.

Weak magic is all I can perform in my current condition, but the smoke should be enough to shield me for some time.

I sleep.

When I wake once more, my eyes remain closed as I listen, taking in my surroundings.

There are no more horses and no more soldiers. I hear scuffings and shuffling and grunts of men at work.

I open one orb to a slit to find I am surrounded once more, but this time by four men from the village. They are using wooden shovels to remove the ash from the remains of my pyre.

I also find the sun has moved across the sky, telling me it is afternoon.

I sit up.

There are screams, and men jump away wielding tools as if weapons. Gasps of shock travel through the dozen or so villagers around me.

I stare about them, giving myself more slight time to heal while seeking the old man with whom I had spoken earlier.

He approaches slowly, hesitant.

“When?” I ask.

“An hour ago,” he replies.

“Where?”

He points north along the remains of a brick road built hundreds of years earlier by another emperor's army.

I lift myself from the ash.

More gasps arise and the villagers back away further.

I step out of the black dust and glance down at myself. My skin is still pink, the flesh barely covering muscle. But I feel strong, and the air tastes good in my lungs.

There are exclamations of fright throughout the crowd as I move forward. I march toward the old man's cabin. Those between me and the building move out of my way as if I am a terrible monster ready to slay them with a look or touch. Perhaps I am.

Inside the hovel I find rough clothes, a simple jerkin with a leather kilt and wolfskin boots.

The old man stands in the doorway to his home.

“Do you have a sword?” I ask while tugging on my new boots.

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Good,” I say. “No easy deaths for them.”

I need no horse to catch my prey. The road reveals their path like the trail of a snail, and speed is no difficulty. I allow the wind to carry me as it did in ancient days, when Rome had its first imperators.

I find the soldiers at eve. They have built a simple camp in the woods near the road, their sleeping tents forming a circle around a cooking fire. Most of the men are retiring for the night, though they are intelligent enough to post two sentries.

I wait. I allow the shadows to grow, the men's eyes to become heavy. Other than the sentries, they are asleep as I near the encampment, my feet sliding on the grass as if on ice. No sound do I make.

From behind a tree I whisper, “Slay.”

One of the sentries tilts his head, his ears picking up my word.

Then he turns to his fellow and runs him through with a spear.

As the body slides off the poled weapon, leaving behind a slick of red, I whisper again.

“Die.”

The remaining sentry gasps as his heart explodes inside his chest and he drops to his knees, then on his face.

I pause before moving forward to finish the rest.

Why should I kill these men? I need not fear them. I cannot be destroyed by any manner known to me. I could flee once more, taking to the road on a stolen horse or using magic to travel to other parts of the world far from here.

But Constantine will not cease searching. My life will never be settled. I will never again know the joys of simply existing, of being without constant worry.

No, I will not flee. These men would just follow, or others like them. I must end them, end this. At the very least, it will buy me more time. Constantine is mortal. He will eventually pass. I can wait.

But not tonight.

A lesson is in order.

Whispering to the coals of the cooling cooking fire, I breath words into the heat. Flames sprout up, begin to dance about. I continue speaking, giving the tiny fires life and allowing them to grow.

Within moments the flames are a thing of their own, reaching up for the night sky, reaching out for new sources of tinder.

They quickly find the tents.

I stand my ground as the blaze grows and spreads, jumping from one tent to another.

Soon there are shouts of surprise, followed by howls of anguish.

I grin at the pain of my enemies.

Tent flaps are tossed back and men begin running like wounded animals not knowing they are in the keens of their death calls. With a swish of my hands, the fires follow the soldiers, flying to one man's hair and then to another's kilt.

The screams of agony grow louder, bringing silence to the rest of the forest. The animals are quiet. The insects are quiet. Even the sky itself seems to stand still in a deathly gloom.

One by one, my enemies fall. A lucky few die quickly, my little flames rushing down their throats and sealing their lungs. Most are unfortunate, death coming to them only slowly as the pain of their rupturing flesh sears their bodies and minds.

Throughout, I keep the fires alive. A whisper and a point of a finger stokes the blaze.

The noises of death and agony are soon drowned out by the popping, cooking sounds of burning meat. The scent of warm flesh is on the air.

Only one man still moves within the circle of flaming tents and burning bodies. It is the young Roman officer. I have allowed him to live. I have left him to the last.

I stride forward, the flames parting for me.

In the center of this circle of burning death, the Roman has sunk to his knees. Either he sleeps in his armor, or he took the time to pull his chest plate over his head and shoulders. Most of his hair is gone, what is left is black and crisped and sticking straight up.

He moans as he wraps his blistered arms around himself.

I stop in front of him.

Slowly, his head comes up. He looks at me.

And I see fear.

My grin grows wider.

His lips tremble. Whether he is trying to speak or simply in shock, I do not know. It does not matter.

“You will return to your emperor,” I say, “and you will tell him I have been vanquished.”

A spark alights in his eyes.

“I do not care what you tell him,” I go on, “but you will inform him I am dead.”

He looks about himself, at his fallen comrades, at the fires still licking away at the camp's few remaining tents.

I grip him by the chin and force his eyes back upon me.

“You will do this,” I say, “or I will find you.”

He does not blink.

“If you betray me, I will hunt you down, and nothing you do can avail against me.”

His eyes continue to stare into mine.

I shake his chin. “Do you understand me?”

This time he blinks, and he nods.

“Good.” I shove him away and turn.

I take a few steps before his voice comes to my ears.

“I have to know,” he says.

I glance over a shoulder at him. “What?”

“The emperor's visions,” he says. “Is it true? Were they … false?”

I sigh. “What difference does it make whether God or I placed the visions in Constantine's eyes? The outcome is the same. The emperor leads by the sign of Christ. Is that not miracle enough?”

His eyes go glassy again. I realize I have done more than destroy this man's peace of mind. I have destroyed his belief, his faith. Unfortunate, but like all of us, he must find his own answers.

Besides, his soul is not mine to save. Not here. Not now. Not ever.

I allow the winds to carry me into the treetops, and from there I float north. It is time I head to another clime, far from Constantine and the Romans and the church and their reach.

There are still pagan lands where perhaps I can spend some years in peace.

But this is not finished. I know that. Eventually I will have to face the Christians again, and though I am one of them, I can never expect them to understand. Which is unfortunate for them. When that day comes, likely I will be forced to send more of them to the Creator.